5 Pension Funds to Support Ajcongress Measure on Boycott

Five public employee pension funds with stock portfolios totaling $2.5 billion have agreed to support an American Jewish Congress-sponsored resolution opposing the Arab boycott at corporate annual meetings this year, it was reported today.

Included are the New York City Teacher’s Retirement Board, with common stock holdings of nearly $1.39 billion; the San Francisco City and County Employees’ Pension Fund, which has a securities portfolio of over $700 million and voted for the AJ Congress resolution last year; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public Schools Employees’ Retirement Board, which owns $400 million in common stock; and the Massachusetts State Employees’ Retirement System and State Teacher’s Retirement System, with $112.7 million in its common stock portfolios.

Will Maslow, general counsel of the AJ Congress and director of the stockholder project, hailed the action of the five boards and said their policy “should set an example to other large institutional investors, increasing numbers of whom show a sense of corporate social responsibility.”

The Pennsylvania Retirement Board is the first pension fund in that state to take a public position on the issue in response to the Congress’ campaign for support by institutional investors of its anti-boycott resolution. It adopted a statement of position on the boycott identical with that of the New York City Teachers’ Retirement Board which recently adopted a statement to vote in favor of “any resolution which calls for a report to the shareholders on the extent and involvement, if any of the corporation in the boycott and which calls upon the corporation to refrain from participating in such boycott.”

The resolution submitted for shareholder action by the AJ Congress and supported by the five funds charges that the Arab boycott against Israel “results in unfair discrimination against certain American companies” and reflects “anti-Jewish prejudice.”